<p>I would second looking at Goucher and St. Johns if MD is the South to you--it certainly is to me. St. John's is very specialized--great books of Western civilization. Goucher is, I believe, the only college that requires study abroad and gives a stipend to help fund it. They're supposed to be good on internships and job placement too. Had a nice artsy feel--lots of dancers there.</p>
<p>"if MD is the South to you"</p>
<p>My Maryland born and bred son says Maryland definitely is not the South. I try to point out the states history and explain that the DC suburbs aren't especially representative of the rest of the state but it is no dice. He is adamant on the subject.</p>
<p>I definitely wouldn't count Georgetown University as a Southern school. WUSTL is more Sorthern than Georgetown.</p>
<p>^^I was wondering the samething.</p>
<p>Ha,ha</p>
<p>My son thinks I'm conservative even though I support our Progressive Party in VT, ran for office to support environmental and gay-rights issues and find most Democrats to be way too conservative for me. MD IS the south to us, but it's all relative.</p>
<p>Centre College should be on the LAC list USNWR #44, and if we are going to 100 then so should Transylvania U at #95. As a Texan I don't want anyone to forget Southwestern at #57, Austin at #74 and most epecially not the #1 Master's College in the "West" Trinity U (whose stats put it way up there in LAC's if it wanted to be considered one as U of Richmond did recently). </p>
<p>IMO Hanover at #84 and DePauw at #48 in very Southern Kentuckiana as it's called are more Southern than some Southern schools in feel.</p>
<p>OT: Most Texans don't consider ourselves anything but Texans but if given the choice between Western and Southern, IMO most of us would choose Southern as an identifier. (The vast majority of Texans live East of a line 30 miles West of I-35. My guess, well over 75%. Southern traditions run somewhat strong to very strong in this region.)</p>
<p>As Maryland is north of my location, it feels north. However, will look at those schools. not at at familar with Centre.</p>
<p>Thanks for the continued input.</p>
<p>The OP seems to ask two distinct questions: 1) what schools in the South best equate to the schools in the Ivy League? That answer would be INPO (in no particular order) Duke, Rice, Vandy, Emory. (Private, top 20, research uni's) and 2) What are some of the highest quality LAC's in the South? IMO that would be INPO Davidson, W+L, Trinity U, Sewanee, Furman, Centre and Rhodes. </p>
<p>Both groups suffer from regional bias in the assessment by their peer institutions. Both groups are very good at what they do.</p>
<p>Hey 'mudge! Where ya been?</p>
<p>Would you include UNC-Ch Hill on your "ivy equate" list?</p>
<p>And George, I would add College of Charleston to your list</p>
<p>jym, finestkind. Visiting the pre-med board, thought I'd drop by. ;) </p>
<p>I thought about it but I don't think you can have a "public" school that feels like a prestige, Ivy league-ish private. YMMV. As good as? Certainly, but just not the same feel (for better or worse) . That's why I put private in my description. I was NOT comparing the quality of Duke , Emory to UNC, UVA. I was excluding publics from my definition of Southern Ivy. I was also excluding LAC's from the category. ;) In that public category I'd put William and Mary, UNC, and UVA. Georgia Tech feels more like CalTech and MIT to me.</p>
<p>But OP's d wants small LAC. That's why I think the use of the term Ivy is a little misplaced.</p>
<p>^^ Agree. Even Dartmouth College has some graduate programs and 1,000+ graduate students on top of its 4,000+ undergraduates. The larger LACS have fewer than 3,000 students and no graduate programs; The majority seem to have about 1,600 students.
There are indeed quite a few excellent LACs in the South. Also excellent public and private universities. But it would be better to eschew the term Ivies to describe non-Ivy League institutions (and the Ivies are quite disparate, ranging from Dartmouth with its 4,000+ graduates to Cornell with its 13,000+ undergraduates)</p>
<p>eschew .....?</p>
<p>avoid/ ten characters</p>
<p>jym626, that wasn't my list that was USNWR's list. USNWR lists the top universities under the title "Top National Universities". This is where you will find Harvard, Duke,USC etc. The LAC equivalent is "Top Liberal Arts Colleges" This is where you will find the best 100 or so best LACs nationally. Then, USNWR show regional schools in other categories named "Master's Universities" and "Comprehensive Colleges" listed by region. COC is listed #11 under "Master's Universities" in the southern region. COC is a good public college but becuase it should not be included in a LAC list. It is a very good school located in a fabulous city; very quaint historical. It's also one of the oldest colleges in the US</p>
<p>just a clarification.........two separate questions:</p>
<p>define southern Ivies</p>
<p>better small LAC's in south</p>
<p>thanks for all the input thus far!!!</p>
<p>Per Wikipedia: "Southern Ivy" is a colloquialism that has been used in the U.S. to imply that a Southern university is comparable to the schools of the Ivy League in some way, usually in academic quality or in social prestige. The Southern Ivy League, referred to as the "Magnolia League", was also a failed attempt to construct an athletic conference with schools that had similar "academic missions and philosophies". [1] [2]</p>
<p>In the 2007 U.S. News and World Report rankings, all members of the Ivy League ranked among the top twenty major national universities as did Duke University, Rice University, Emory University, and Vanderbilt University. Duke at number 8, was below four and above four Ivy League.</p>
<p>Depending on what you call the "south" here's the list of the best USNWR schools in the south in the same list as the real Ivies (since there are 8 schools in the Ivy league pick out the top eight you consider to be in the south):
Duke University(NC)<br>
Rice University(TX)<br>
Vanderbilt University(TN)<br>
Emory University(GA)<br>
Georgetown University(DC)<br>
University of Virginia *
U. of North Carolina—Chapel Hill *
Wake Forest University(NC)<br>
College of William and Mary(VA) *
Georgia Institute of Technology *
Tulane University(LA) 11<br>
University of Florida *
George Washington University(DC)</p>
<p>I try to avoid Ivy League when referring to excellent schools. MIT, Caltech, Stanford, Chicago Duke and others are all schools of comparable excellence to the Ivy League ones (and arguably even better than some of those schools).
To use the term Ivy when referring to non-Ivy institutions obfuscates rather than clarifies.
And to use the term Ivy when meaning small LACs is even less productive. One could compare some of the Southern or Midwestern LACs to ASWP far more appropriately.</p>
<p>obfuscates ... ? boy do I feel stupid</p>
<p>Sorry, but what does ASWP mean?</p>
<p>Amherst, Swarthmore, Williams, Pomona.</p>
<p>Those are all fine schools on your list G2007 but they're not in the same league with the Ivies in terms of toughness, except for maybe the top three.</p>
<p>While Duke likes to pretend it's Harvard of the South, I think Dartmouth would be the more accurate comparable.</p>
<p>UVA and UNC-CH are both what sometimes are referred to as "the public Ivies"...and I agree with Marite about the obfuscation...whose peers would include UCLA, Berkeley, and U/Michigan, but they serve a much larger and broader student body and it's like comparing tangerines and cantaloupes. </p>
<p>Off the top of my head, I'd comp Emory to Tufts, William & Mary to one of the better Northern LAC's. GW, imho, while a decent school, doesn't even belong in the discussion, ditto U/Florida, which for the most part is in the public niche a tier under the aforementioned "public Ivies" along with U/Texas, U/Wisconsin-Madison, U/Washington.</p>